Although in most of the English-speaking world this field is not usually regarded as a specific specialization for journalists, it is so in nearly all the world. Particularly in the United States, there is a blurred distinction between world news and "national" news when they include directly the national government or national institutions, such as wars in which the US are involved or summits of multilateral organizations in which the US are a member.

Actually, at the birth of modern journalism, most news were actually foreign, as registered by the courants of the 17th century in West and Central Europe, such as the Daily Courant (England), the Nieuwe Tijudinger (Antwerp), the Relation (Strasbourg), the Avisa Relation oder Zeitung (Wolfenbüttel) and the Courante Uyt Italien, Duytsland & C. (Amsterdam). Since these papers were aimed at bankers and merchants, they brought mostly news from other markets, which usually meant other nations. In any case, it is worthy to remark that nation-states were still incipient in 17th-century Europe.

History

The World News was founded in 1981 by Florencio Tan Mallare (Chinese:陳華岳; pinyin:Chén Huáyuè; Pe̍h-ōe-jī:Tân Hôa-ga̍k), a lawyer from Macalelon, Quezon who also worked as a reporter for the Chinese Commercial News. After the normalization of relations between the Philippines and the People's Republic of China in 1975, Mallare established the World News as an alternative to the largely pro-Taiwan, pro-Kuomintang mainstream Chinese-language press, catering to both Chinese Filipinos who would prefer news about China from other points of view as well as the growing number of mainland Chinese migrants to the Philippines who did not necessarily share the pro-Taiwan stance of more established Chinese Filipinos.